looked at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled as if he could take offense to that question but chose not to. “The ranch is about ten miles outside of town. But I’m not a hired hand. It’s my family’s place. My place. My dad passed away three years ago after a heart attack, but my brothers and my mother and I keep it going.”
“Brothers—those would be the uncles you mentioned?”
“Right.”
“I didn’t count, but it sounded like there are a lot of them.”
“Five.”
“No sisters?”
“Nope. My dad always joked that my mom gave him sons because they couldn’t afford ranch hands.”
“So all six sons make their living on your family’s ranch?”
“Everybody but my brother Devon. He’s a veterinarian in Denver. The rest of us work the place, yeah, but we’ve all been known to pick up odd jobs here and there to supplement what the ranch brings in. My brother Josh, for instance, was just elected sheriff.”
By then they were on the outskirts of Elk Creek, and Clair began to see what she assumed were ranches or farms—she couldn’t tell the difference. Basically what she saw were huge stretches of open countryside with an occasional large house, barn or outbuilding sitting far back from the road.
Jace must have noticed her interest in the three houses they passed—all very impressive—because he said, “Our spread isn’t up to par with what you’re seein’ so far. We’re smaller.”
There was a note to his voice that told her it was a sore spot with him.
“So you live in town and just go out to your ranch to work? Is there not a house on it?”
“Sure there’s a house. I grew up in it, and my mother and brothers still live there. I just moved into town when I became Willy’s guardian—that house belonged to Billy and Kim. Now, technically, it’s Willy’s. But I thought Willy had had enough trauma, and he didn’t need to be moved out to the ranch on top of everything else.”
“It must be inconvenient for you to live in Elk Creek instead of on your land with your family, though.”
“Some, but it’s no big deal. I may consider moving back with Willy later on, renting out the house in town. The money from something like that could pay for Willy’s education when the time comes. Then, after he’s all grown-up he can take the place over. But for now this is what’s best for him.”
Clair glanced over at Willy. “So you’re already a homeowner, huh?” she joked.
Willy looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language and turned his head again.
“We’re just up the road,” Jace informed her as he turned off the main drag onto a flat dirt road that was a straight shot to a house that stood about a quarter of a mile ahead.
As they drew nearer Clair could see more details. The house was a two-story square box. A steep, black, shingled roof dropped eaves over three multipaned windows on the top level, and a matching roof shaded a wraparound porch on the lower level.
It was definitely not as fancy, as elaborate or as large as the houses they’d passed before, but it showed care in the flawless white paint and the black shutters that stood on either side of all the windows, including the two picture windows that looked out onto the porch.
There were homey, loving touches in the twin carriage lamps that adorned the shutters that bracketed the door, in the planters that hung in the center of each section of the cross-buck railing that surrounded the porch, and in the old-fashioned spindled benches and high-backed rocking chairs situated here and there.
But regardless of the care lavished on the place, it was still just an old farmhouse that couldn’t compare to those other houses they’d driven by.
“Mop?” Willy said excitedly, as Jace drove around the house to the big red barn behind it.
“She’s already gone by now, Willy. So’s everybody else.”
“Mop?” Clair repeated.
“That’s what he calls my mother. Near as we can tell he heard all of us calling her Mom, figured she wasn’t his mom, and settled for Mop.”
“Mop,” Willy said again in confirmation, as if it made perfect sense.
“We’re getting a late start today or the whole gang would be here and I’d introduce you. As it is, there’s no reason to go in when it’s the paddock fence I’m fixin’ today. But we have the run of the place if you need a bathroom or anything,” he informed her as he pulled the truck to a stop near the barn’s great door.
“I can keep Willy out of your way while you work,” Clair suggested.
“I hep you, Unca Ace,” Willy insisted, again with that two-year-old forcefulness, as if Clair were interfering.
“Uncle Ace?” she parroted, unable to suppress a laugh as she did.
“He doesn’t do too well with js,” Jace explained, giving her a sheepish grin that was so charming and endearing she didn’t have a doubt that it gave him tremendous leverage with whatever woman he used it on. Her included, although she didn’t want to admit it.
Then, to Willy, he said, “Yep, you can help me. And maybe we’ll put Clair to work, too.”
Willy scowled at her but didn’t come out with the usual no. That seemed to Clair like progress.
Jace got out of the truck, and Clair followed him, glancing around as he took Willy from the car seat.
Not that there was a lot to see—some farm equipment, a garage about the same size as the barn, with four doors and what looked to be an apartment on top. The winter’s remaining bales of hay were stacked in a lean-to. Several towering apple trees provided shade for the rear of the house and the mud porch that jutted out from it. A brick-paved patio held a picnic table, benches and stacked lawn chairs awaiting summer.
“There you go, little man,” Clair heard Jace say as he set Willy on his feet.
No sooner did he let go of the small boy than Willy took off like a shot for the barn, disappearing through the big open doors without a word to Jace.
“Where’s he going?” Clair asked.
“To say good morning to Tom. He’s our barn cat. Willy never gets near the barn without going in after him.”
“Would you mind if I went, too?”
“No, go ahead. I need to get the wood out of the truck and start work. I’ll be right over there.” He nodded toward the white rail fence that surrounded an area of dirt beside the barn. The paddock, Clair assumed, although it didn’t really matter to her what it was called.
Willy was all that was on her mind as she took off in the same direction he had, entertaining visions of the two of them bonding over the pet.
She expected to find boy and cat the
